What began as a friendly debate over lunch about the benefits of low-carb eating vs. the risks to heart health these diets might bring grew into a study of whether high protein, low carb diets might actually clog up your arteries, the results of which appear in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). So, are low carb Diets side effects potentially responsible for artery health problems?
While researchers out of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center had seen a pattern in patients on low-carb diets suffering heart attacks, there had been no controlled work in the area, and thus no hard evidence to connect the two.
Diets that restrict carbs first became the rage in the 1990, with meals being based on lots of meat, fish and cheese, while bread, grains, rice, starchy veggies and fruit are restricted.
The basic thinking is that carbs raise blood sugar and insulin levels and cause you to gain weight; cutting carbs will give you lower blood sugar and insulin levels that will lead to weight loss. Without the carbs, your body turns to store fat to give you the energy you need.
Still a popular choice today, these eating plans do help many people lose weight, but at what cost? This latest work brings to light some worrisome findings about what these diets are doing to the body - Especially our arteries.
The researchers wanted to see what changes such eating plans bring to the arteries and so fed groups of subject mice three different diets. Beyond their obvious suitability to being studied, these tiny mammals are surprisingly similar to people in terms of genetics.
One of the mouse diets studied was standard mouse fare (65% carbs, 15% fat, 20% protein), the second was a typical western diet (43% carbs, 42% fat, 15% protein, 0.15% cholesterol), and the final diet tested was a low-carb, high protein diet (12% carbs, 43% fat, 45% protein, 0.15% cholesterol).
The low-carb diet didn't appear to effect cholesterol levels, typically a standard marker of cardiovascular risk, but there was a huge difference in the buildup of fatty plaque in the arteries, known as atherosclerosis, which can lead to stroke or heart attack.
In fact, at the end of the 12 week study period, the mice eating the low-carb diet had gained 28% less weight than mice fed the western diet, but had 15% more atherosclerosis than those eating the standard mouse food.
Also of note, the western diet bought a 9% increase in atherosclerosis.
While the effect on arteries was clear, experts can't say why this happens.
In an effort to explain it, they looked at the bone marrow of the mice and saw a 40% reduction in endothelial or vascular progenitor cell (EPC) counts. This suggests that low-carb diets might impact the way bone marrow cells clean arteries of fatty deposits.
The take home message is that while low-carb plans may be helpful for weight loss, there may certainly be a disconnect in terms of your vascular health.
Lead researcher Anthony Rosenzweig, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Research in BIDMC's CardioVascular Institute and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School was convinced enough to come off his own low-carb diet. He sums up the current thinking on eating healthy, "It appears that a moderate and balanced diet, coupled with regular exercise, is probably best for most people."
So, don't rely on your high protein low carb diet alone to give you a slim, healthy body as the number of studies that suggest that the low carb diet side effects may be problematic seem to be growing.
You really need to be getting the different nutrients your body needs by eating from all the food groups each day. Starches like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta also have a place, perhaps being as much as a third of what we take in each day.
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